It's been a bad week for…

Wig makers, after Lord Chief Justice Lord Bingham said the trial process should not expose defendants under the age of 18 to "avoidable intimidation, humiliation or distress". So wigs and robes will be banned as will any "recognisable police presence". The direction came in the wake of a European Court of Human Rights ruling that James Bulger's killers experienced "intimidation" during their trial.

Jack "will-no-one-rid-me-of-this-troublesome-dictator" Straw. Just when he thought he'd got out of doing anything with the medical reports on the good General, Amnesty International called for his decision on Pinochet's unfitness to stand trial to go before a court. The UK is the only country to have signed the European Convention on Extradition where a politician can intervene in a judicial case. The next chapter in the Pinochet saga may challenge that position.